I’m mostly a failure at writing pleasing exhortations. I realize I am as sand on a picnic, a grinding noise during a philharmonic concert, or the smell of sulfur in a flower garden.

A frequent question is, “Why don’t you just be diplomatic and gentle?”

They seldom ask the same about the individual that scream warnings to save people’s lives. Warnings of imminent danger will irritate people, and many people will ignore them. We are in a very precarious situation in this nation. Concerning the Great War between light and darkness, millions of professing Christians have left Gideon to follow Saul. Saul had the charisma and the profile—Gideon had the message and the faith. The darkest hour is just before dawn.

The watchman cried, “The morning cometh, but also the night.” A massive number of people are waiting for the morning and are completely unprepared for the night. Perhaps they will pause long enough to realize that there cannot be a morning without going through the full period of the night. Someone has to warn them.

There is no gentle way to exhort people. Tell them with a sentence or a book—either way, they have no interest in anything that disturbs their sacrosanct apathy. I could ask with few responses, “When was the last time the Holy Spirit convicted you? Today? Yesterday? You cannot remember?” There is nothing I write that can be as troubling as conviction by the Holy Spirit. But genteel ears of the one that are sliding away are more quickly offended than calloused hearts. However, I am compelled to write and apply the substance to myself as well as offer it to others.

Modern Christians believe it crass to be forthright about apostasy or use the title Satan. The new decorum is to hint at what is wrong, hint about who may be responsible, and hint about the involvement of the god of this world, but don’t say apostasy or Satan. Such people are certainly not open to the blessed negativity of conviction.

We are not in a great parlor with gentle-eared dignitaries. This is not a helpful speech about how to get everyone to the church meeting on time. This is a deadly period of great deception and with many precursors signaling a very dark and ominous storm is imminent. The most needed are irritating and piercing warnings.

It is not the period for a vogue religion that fits nicely with compartmentalized rituals and traditions. Apathetic cataracts need to be removed from professing Christians’ eyes. It is not about shocking people with sensationalism. It is about piercing their hearts with the truth that they must acknowledge, accept, assimilated, and apply.

Professing Christians need to realize that just as the marriage vow “I do” must be forever, the redemption vow “I will” must be forever. Taking God for granted, marginalizing commitment, and manipulating how much and deeply we allow His Lordship in our lives, is backsliding. Building a persona that depicts us as religiously superior is just plain old Phariseeism. It still stinks, God still despises it, and it smells more like hell than heaven.

The problem is that people are following self—made religious leaders. They are hirelings and heretics that shamelessly advertise their “success” as if they have a special anointing from God. People pay them for gloating and posturing as great ones.

Anything one can do without God needs no trumpet to recognize it. Whatever is done with God’s help has no glory for us in it.

If we want to be superior, we should strive to be superior to apathy, unfaithfulness, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, and the carnal mind. That requires remaining in His presence via prayer. Then we will wake up to the reality of God who is so magnificent one trembles at the thought of meeting Him in eternity.

God’s Kingdom is antithetical to the carnal mind. The more it influences us, the more dominant our flesh tries to become. The less sensitive we will be to His presence and more susceptible to apostasy. We have to fight the great fight of faith—there is no opt-out clause in that battle. If the carnal mind remains dominant in a professed Christian, he or she will become an enemy of God. Everyone bearing fruit has gone through a season of purging that he or she could bear more fruit.

There is no point in attempting anything before “uncarnaling” the carnal mind—an arduous task since the first step is full surrender to God. Many people never make that selfless move. It involves praying for a lengthy period, often feeling nothing. One may believe God sealed heaven against him or her. It may be a lengthy period before God answers. Then comes the entire gamut of purging trials that feel like punishment and rejection by God. If one can survive that dark night of the soul, it will enable him or her to say as Paul: “From now on let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” (Galatians 6:17)

One that has not surrendered cannot know the value of truth that cuts to the marrow of the bone. They accuse such truth of being hatred disseminated by spiteful legalists who want to rob people of their liberty in God. They cannot have liberty in Whom they do not know. It is not liberty, but religious liberalism. They do not know God or their fruit would verify their intimacy with Him. Instead. they know the fomenting of apostasy and the creator of the world system. They know Satan in all of his religious glory, and their flesh loves the relationship.

I cannot say anything more to such people except, “Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.” (Isaiah 55:6)

“Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face evermore!” — 1 Chronicles 16:11